45

New towns were intended for generating full living spaces within Paris large metropolitan area. Thirty five years later, the former settlers seem to be deep-rooted in their new town. It can be explained by both the creation of centrality in these new urban areas and the large scale of this settlement. If the settlement in a new town meant first affordable home-ownership, it offered later on opportunities for a new housing, for instance after a marital breakdown. Inside new towns, residential turn-over is lower than anywhere else within Paris metropolitan area, whatever the dwellers’ social and housing circumstances. This residential embeddedness might be related with family propinquity, as children tend to live in the neighbourhood when they leave the parental home, as it is evidenced in the paper.